30
other immutable gaming distros? (piefed.social)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Im wondering if there are any other immutable gamine distros besides bazzite. in particular im wondering if immutables use any other base. I swear I thought suse was doing custome type things long ago.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 16 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I game on NixOS, ask me anything and I'll do my best to answer :)

To answer if NixOS is immutable, kind of yes if you want it to be immutable.

It can really be whatever you want it to be. If you:

  • Use flakes and
  • Keep your config in Git

Your system is pinned and reproducible.

Applying the same config on any other system would result in the exact same setup. All around.

When you want to update, you update the inputs to your flake, rebuild your system and switch into the new build.

If everything is good, you commit the updated flake file and any other system can pull it to update to the exact same config state.

It is magic and cool!

Also, if you want, it can be the complete opposite.

You can switch from the stable channels (new releases bi-annually) to the unstable channel (rolling release) and configure auto-updates.

Now you have a bleeding edge system that updates daily.

It is so cool.

I get that there is a lot of terms and stuff that is unclear, but it'll all clear up once you get into it :)

But yeah, it is a OS that revolves around config files and kind of "coding" your own system.

If that sounds like fun to you (I love it) give it a try! If that sounds daunting, maybe stick with Bazzite, CachyOS or something easy to use. NixOS is easy to work with once you get it, but so is rocket science I guess.

I am rambling. Give it a try! Or don't! 😄

I am going to migrate our living room gaming PC, my Raspberry Pi and my server machine to NixOS once I get the chance to.

This is my Linux endgame. I am not going back from here 😄

NixOS is not really a distro like other distros. It is more like a framework of creating the perfect custom distro that fits YOU.

If you've read this far, you're a champ 🙏

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I imagine that this also means it's your own responsibility to research and manage upgrades that the rest of the Linux world are making. For example, X11 -> Wayland, PulseAudio -> Pipewire. One of the benefits of using distros like Fedora or Debian is that you can trust them to make these changes for you. Reproducible is nice, but immutable distros give you a reproducible desktop that also evolves over time, without any effort from you.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, you have to define this stuff somewhere. But changing from one to another is simple.

    This is my audio setup right now:

      services.pulseaudio.enable = false;
  services.pipewire = {
    enable = true;
    alsa.enable = true;
    alsa.support32Bit = true;
    pulse.enable = true;
  };

    I will just keep rolling this until it constrains me somehow and then I will revisit it and improve it to fit my needs.

    If you like NixOS, this is not a big burden really. Otherwise you are probably better off with some other dist, as you mentioned.

    I don't see it as a big tradeoff, but that's because I like this way of doing things.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    All the power to you! For me personally, what I've learned in the past few years of using Linux, is that installing things is just half the battle. The other half is discovering them and deciding whether they are worth the time and effort. And I found out about so many useful tools from the Fedora and Bazzite teams that I decided I'd rather let them make the choices for me. Things like pipewire, wayland, fzf, ptyxis, btrfs, podman, distrobox, bazaar, and so much more.

    When I want to configure a declarative environment like people do on Nixos, I just use a container, devpod, or distrobox. These are all included on Bazzite DX. But for the base system I prefer to delegate trust to others to save me the time and energy. The maintainers test each tool, and make sure they are stable and work with the rest of the system, so that I don't have to. And in the future if I decide I don't like the direction that Bazzite is going, the rpm-ostree rebase system lets me use a single command to switch to a different distro maintained by a different team.

    Though to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if Nixos had a similar system, and if they don't right now they probably will in the future. Things are changing fast!

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago

    Yeah, same to you!

    I don't like having to configure every detail of my computing experience. I like to be able to do so though. And that's part of what makes me love NixOS. Most things can be enabled with a service.<whatever>.enable = true and it is installed and set up with very sane defaults. Essentially what other maintainers do, only that you had to decide you wanted that service to begin with.

    And for boring stuff like networking or whatever, I haven't made many desicions my self. That just came with the default config from my base install. I brought them with me as I evolved it, and as long as I don't need anything else, I won't be changing it either.

    But yeah, I very much understand why someone would not want to use NixOS. It is great for those who like it and hell for those who just wants a set and forget system :)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I absolutely love the idea of NixOS and have tried it a few times, but I just can't wrap my head around the language and syntax. It hurts my brain. Which is sad for me, because it seems like magic until I run into a wall and it starts doing unexpected things and I go into the slippery slope of messy confusing code trying to patch things until it works the way I want it to and I soon have a unmaintainable spaghetti configuration I can no longer understand at all and I never escape the doomspiral.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    Yeah, it took me a good while to be comfortable. And I am still more or less a noob.

    I'd say I don't fully understand the syntax properly, but I get around. The docs are great if you haven't checked them.

    I have also been spitballing with AI to get input on how to attack new problems in there and I find that really helpful. If you are strongly anti-ai there are some good community chats on Discord, Matrix and elsewhere where people have been really kind and helpful as well.

    My recommendation is:

    • Start a new system using a single flake
    • Add what you need, when you need it
    • When it starts feeling unmaintainable, take a step back, stop adding new stuff and figure out how you can refactor your system so that you are back in control

    You have to think it is fun for it to be worth it really, but you seem sold on the concept, so I think you'll get there!

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent